Fanfare posts tagged with trekhttp://fanfare.metafilter.com/tags/trek
Posts tagged with 'trek' at Fanfare.Mon, 05 Oct 2015 11:47:58 -0800Mon, 05 Oct 2015 11:47:58 -0800en-ushttp://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss60Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Search, Part IIhttp://fanfare.metafilter.com/4623/Star%2DTrek%2DDeep%2DSpace%2DNine%2DThe%2DSearch%2DPart%2DII
We can't all just get along. Also, Odo's first family reunion becomes rather awkward. <strong>Trivia</strong>:<br>
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- This is the first episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine to be directed by Jonathan Frakes, in his first directorial stint after Star Trek: The Next Generation. He directed two further episodes, "Meridian" and "Past Tense, Part II", and made a guest appearance in "Defiant" – all in Season 3 – as well as directing episodes for Star Trek: Voyager. Frakes commented "it was like having a Next Generation episode assignment to direct a Data story. It was that rich. Rene [Auberjonois] is a wonderful, inventive actor, much like Brent Spiner. Everyone was great. The sets on Deep Space Nine are fabulous to shoot. They're much bigger. There is more room. And it's hard to find a bad angle on that space station".<br>
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- The monolith that is seen several times in the background of the garden on the shapeshifters' planet is almost identical to the monolith which appeared in the episode "The Alternate" as a 'relic of Odo's people'.<br>
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- After this episode, the Vorta did not appear again until the season 4 episode "To the Death".<br>
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- This is the second and last episode that T'Rul, the first Romulan to appear on DS9, would ever appear in, although the actress, Martha Hackett, would go on to play Seska in Voyager.tag:fanfare.metafilter.com,2015:site.4623Mon, 05 Oct 2015 11:47:58 -0800Halloween JackStar Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Search, Part 1http://fanfare.metafilter.com/4587/Star%2DTrek%2DDeep%2DSpace%2DNine%2DThe%2DSearch%2DPart%2D1%2DRewatch
Season 3 Premiere: Sisko takes an untested Starfleet warship into the Gamma Quadrant in an attempt to find the Founders of the Dominion. <strong>Trivia</strong><br>
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* In <em><a href="http://vplay.ro/watch/rh8emy9t/">The Birth of the Dominion and Beyond</a></em> featurette found on the DS9 Season 3 DVD, Robert Hewitt Wolfe explains the structure and organization of the Dominion: <em>"The Gamma Quadrant isn't empty, it isn't just a bunch of planets. It's bound together by the Dominion, a very very tough, very smart, very old civilization, run by the mysterious Founders, who are experts in genetic engineering, and who turn out to be Odo's people, the Shapeshifters. They then go and engineer these slave races that do their bidding. Essentially, the two main slave races were the 'carrot' and the 'stick'. The carrot being the Vorta, who would come to your planet and say "Hey, you're nice people, here's some M-16s and some popcorn, and whatever else you want baby, alcohol, fire-water? All you have to do is sign this little contract and we'll make you cool". Then there's the Jem'Hadar. So the Vorta say "Oh, you don't want to play ball? Then meet these guys. They're gonna kick your ass"."</em><br>
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* First appearance of Salome Jens as the Female Changeling. Also the first time we see Romulans in Deep Space Nine. Also, Ronald D. Moore's first episode. <br>
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* First episode where Sisko expresses a love for Bajor and his refusal to allow it to fall, under any circumstances. <br>
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* Of the creation of the USS Defiant: <br>
-&gt; Robert Hewitt Wolfe points out, <em>"Bringing in the Defiant was based on our own internal perceptions of something that would make the show better. It was not based on ratings."</em> <br>
-&gt; Ira Steven Behr: <em>"We'd created villains who were that powerful, and all we had floating around as the thin red line of defense against this possible invading army were three runabouts."</em> <br>
-&gt; Science consultant André Bormanis: <em>"I liked the idea of getting away from the concept that all Federation technology was squeaky clean and perfect. The Defiant has its problems because it's a prototype. it was hastily put together in the face of the Borg threat."</em> <br>
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* After deciding not to make T'Rul a recurring character, the producers also decided not to use the cloaking device beyond "The Search, Part I". So certain were they that it wouldn't be used again that they even informed production designer Herman Zimmerman and director of photography Jonathan West that they didn't need to design an elaborate lighting rig with "normal" and "cloaked" lighting, because the dimming "cloaked" effect would only ever be seen once. So, West had his crew simply manually change the lights for the scenes under cloak. Of course, the cloak was employed many times after that, but the set and the lighting rig were never redesigned, so every time the ship went under cloak, West had to have his crew manually change all of the lights, something which he was quite annoyed about.tag:fanfare.metafilter.com,2015:site.4587Thu, 01 Oct 2015 11:56:27 -0800zarqStar Trek: Deep Space Nine: Tribunalhttp://fanfare.metafilter.com/4497/Star%2DTrek%2DDeep%2DSpace%2DNine%2DTribunal%2DRewatch
The Cardassians arrest Miles O'Brien for working with the Maquis. In the Cardassian judicial system, the accused's guilt is already established and the trial is only an Orwellian formality. <strong>Trivia</strong> <i>(Cribbed from <a href="http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Tribunal_%28episode%29">here</a> and <a href="http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Miles_O'Brien">here</a>)</i><br>
* This season's second "O'Brien Must Suffer" episode, -- the first was "<a href="http://fanfare.metafilter.com/4212/Star-Trek-Deep-Space-Nine-Whispers-Rewatch">Whispers</a>" -- a running joke from the show's writing staff. According to executive producer/writer Ira Steven Behr, <em>"Every year in one or two shows we try to make his life miserable, because you empathize with him."</em> Robert Hewitt Wolfe further explains, <em>"If O'Brien went through something torturous and horrible, the audience was going to feel that, in a way they wouldn't feel it with any of the other characters. Because all the other characters were sort of, I wouldn't say larger than life, but nobler than life, but O'Brien was just a guy, trying to live his life and so if you tortured him that was a story."</em>. <br>
* According to Behr, <em>"O'Brien is everyman. In a show about humans and aliens, he's as human as you get."</em> Similarly, Behr's writing partner for the first four seasons of the show, Robert Hewitt Wolfe, says, <em>"He's just a regular guy, a guy doing his job. He's just the most unlikely of all heroes because he's a family man with a daughter and eventually a son and a wife and they have arguments and a real relationship, and he's just a working class schmo, I mean obviously he's a really bright guy and very good at what he did, but basically, a working class schmo just trying to get through his day."</em> <br>
* The first episode directed by Avery Brooks, and a sequel of sorts to the <em>Star Trek: The Next Generation</em> episode, "<a href="http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/The_Wounded_%28episode%29">The Wounded</a>", where we first learn Miles' backstory regarding the Cardassians.<br>
* <a href="http://www.tor.com/2013/10/04/star-trek-deep-space-nine-rewatch-tribunal/">Cardassian trials are meant purely as propaganda theatre</a>. They never try an innocent person, only people who are found guilty, and the sentence is read before the trial even starts. The offenders also don’t get to find out what they’re accused of until the trial starts. Cardassia Prime is littered with viewscreens that play propaganda all the live-long day, and they also broadcast the trials so that the people can see justice at work.<br>
* Andrew Robinson (Elim Garak) has likened the Cardassian brain to the reptilian portion of the Human brain, which, in Robinson's words, <em>"knows what boundaries are ... [and] how to take care of itself so that the species survives."</em> Consequentially, Cardassian philosophy places order above both freedom and equality, resulting in an Orwellian society where the good of the state is placed above that of the individual. Kovat epitomizes this philosophy in his defense of the legal system: <em>"Whatever you've done, whatever the charges against you, none of that really matters in the long run... This trial is to demonstrate the futility of behavior contrary to good order."</em><br>
* Sending the USS Enterprise-D to the DMZ was a tribute to <em>Star Trek: The Next Generation</em>, as "Tribunal" was the first <em>Star Trek</em> episode to air after <em>TNG's</em> series finale, "All Good Things...."<br>
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--<br>
<strong>O'Brien</strong>: "I've been in service to the Federation – Starfleet – all my adult life. <em>No one</em> has ever questioned my loyalty. No one in my entire life has ever had cause to ask, 'Miles O'Brien, are you a criminal?' I took an oath to defend the Federation and what it stands for. I don't steal from them, I don't lie to them... I'm no angel, but I try to live every day as the best human being I know how to be. I need my little girl to wake in the morning and look up at me and see a man she can respect! Until now, she always could."<br>
<strong>Odo</strong>: "Being accused of a crime is not a disgrace, Chief. Some of the great figures of history have shared the honor with you."<br>
<strong>O'Brien</strong>: "I didn't figure on dying a martyr."<br>
<strong>Odo</strong>: "Not all of them were martyrs. Not all of them died. Some of them were just innocent men, like you." <br>
--tag:fanfare.metafilter.com,2015:site.4497Tue, 22 Sep 2015 20:45:40 -0800zarqStar Trek: Deep Space Nine: Crossoverhttp://fanfare.metafilter.com/4442/Star%2DTrek%2DDeep%2DSpace%2DNine%2DCrossover%2DRewatch
Kira and Bashir accidentally cross to the Mirror Universe, where a Klingon-Cardassian alliance rules, Terrans are enslaved, and no one has discovered the wormhole to the Gamma quadrant. A century before, James T. Kirk had made a similar crossover, affecting human and galactic history. <strong>The Script</strong><br>
<a href="http://www.st-minutiae.com/academy/literature329/443.txt">http://www.st-minutiae.com/academy/literature329/443.txt</a><br>
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<strong>Trivia</strong><br>
* A sequel to the iconic 1967 episode of The Original Series: "<a href="http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Mirror,_Mirror">Mirror, Mirror</a>." (<a href="http://fanfare.metafilter.com/2634/Star-Trek-Mirror-Mirror-Rewatch">Fanfare discussion</a>.) <br>
* Michael Piller commented: <em>"We've been pitched "Mirror, Mirror" sequels since Star Trek: The Next Generation began, and I wasn't interested. But I couldn't get away from the fact that it would be interesting know what happened after "Mirror, Mirror" finished. I couldn't escape the idea that Kirk's influence in the world that he left might have been profound and changed history. What would be more of a gross violation of the Prime Directive? Ira [Behr] said, 'What if he actually screwed things up?' Spock listened to what he said and then they turned this evil empire into a much more gentle empire that was conquered and taken over by the Klingons, the Cardassians and others. I was watching Schindler's List and I was thinking if I were a little older, I could have been in one of those camps in Poland. If Germany had won the war, I would not be here doing what I am doing today. I guarantee you. I was very pleased with the way the script turned out".</em> <br>
* Writer Robert Hewitt Wolfe wrote the fall of the Terran Empire into the script as an analogy for the fall of the Roman Empire to barbarians and the Chinese Dynasty to the Mongols. He also wanted to illustrate that if an Empire is as brutal as the Terran Empire was in "Mirror, Mirror", there were probably reasons why it was so brutal and he wished to convey the message that, in such circumstances, one cannot change things overnight, and even the actions of Captain Kirk can have severe consequences; <em>"Empires aren't usually brutal unless there's a reason. There are usually external or internal pressures that cause them to be that way. So I just thought that if the parallel Earth was that brutal, there had to be a reason. And the reason was that the barbarians (the Klingons and the Cardassians) were at the gate."</em> <br>
* After this episode aired, there was a great deal of discussion about how sexy and alluring Nana Visitor was as the Intendant, with the costume she wore garnering a great deal of attention. According to costume designer Robert Blackman, the general consensus amongst fans was that it was the revealing costume that gave Visitor this new level of seductiveness, but Blackman disagrees; <em>"It's not that I've exposed more of her body - it's exposed pretty much the same way it always is. What's the difference? She's the difference. It's how Nana wears it. It's what she does. She walks like a provocative woman, with her legs crossing in front. She uses her hips, and a whole other kind of body English than she normally uses."</em><br>
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<strong>Quotes</strong><br>
<strong>Intendant Kira</strong>: "Almost a century ago, a Terran starship Captain named James Kirk accidentally exchanged places with his counterpart from your side due to a transporter accident. Our Terrans were barbarians then, but their Empire was strong. While your Kirk was on this side, he met a Vulcan named Spock and somehow had a profound influence on him. Afterwards, Spock rose to commander in chief of the Empire by preaching reforms, disarmament, peace. It was a remarkable turnabout for his people. Unfortunately for them, when Spock had completed all these reforms, his empire was no longer in any position to defend itself against us."<br>
<strong>Kira</strong>: "Us?<br>
<strong>Intendant Kira:</strong> "The Alliance. The historic coming together of the Klingons and Cardassians."<br>
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---<br>
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<strong>"Smiley" O'Brien</strong> [to the Intendant]: "This man is a doctor where he comes from. And there's an O'Brien there, just like me... except he's some kind of high-up chief of operations. And they're Terrans. Can you believe that? Maybe it's a fairy tale he made up, but it started me thinking how each of us might have turned out had history been just a little different. I wanted him to take me with him because, whatever it's like where he's from, it's gotta be better than this. There's got to be something better than this."tag:fanfare.metafilter.com,2015:site.4442Wed, 16 Sep 2015 12:11:45 -0800zarqStar Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Maquis (Part 2) http://fanfare.metafilter.com/4382/Star%2DTrek%2DDeep%2DSpace%2DNine%2DThe%2DMaquis%2DPart%2D2
Sisko tries to rescue Gul Dukat, stop the Maquis terrorists, and prevent a new war with the Cardassians. <strong>Trivia</strong><br>
* Rule of Aquisition #3: "Never spend more for an acquisition than you have to" <br>
* Natalija Nogulich makes her first DS9 appearance as Admiral Nechayev. She had appeared thrice as Nechayev on ST:TNG, in “Chain of Command, Part I,” “Descent,” and “Journey’s End.” <br>
* John Shuck appears as Legate Parn. A <em>Trek</em> regular, Shuck played the Klingon ambassador in <em>Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home</em> and <em>Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country</em>. He would go on to play a member of the chorus in <em>Star Trek: Voyager</em>’s “Muse”; and the Klingon geneticist Antaak in the two-part <em>Star Trek: Enterprise</em> story “Affliction” and “Divergence.”<br>
* This episode continues a story arc begun with the end of <em>Star Trek: TNG</em>'s finale episode, "Journey's End." Following the signing of a new treaty with the Cardassians, the Federation has handed over several of its colonies to the Cardassians, and vice versa. The colonists chose to remain rather than evacuate, which has caused tension along the border.<br>
* Ira Steven Behr is extremely proud of this episode and considers it to be one of the most important early episodes in establishing the darker ideology for which <em>Deep Space Nine</em> would become known. In particular, he refers to Sisko's speech to Kira, and the line "it's easy to be a saint in paradise", as expressing a much less optimistic view of humanity than had ever before been presented in <em>Star Trek</em>. Behr has said he always wanted to dig deeper into Starfleet, to see what Earth was really like and examine the paradise that Gene Roddenberry had envisioned. Indeed, he wanted to do this on <em>The Next Generation</em> but was never allowed; <em>"I'd been waiting to say that line in <em>Star Trek</em> for a long time. We need to dig deeper and find out what, indeed, life is like in the twenty-fourth century. Is it this paradise, or are there, as Harold Pinter said, "Weasels under the coffee table." Sisko's speech in this episode was the beginning of our really starting to question some of the basic tenets of Star Trek philosophy. Because, yes, it's a paradise – but so what?"</em> <br>
* Robert Hewitt Wolfe commented: <em>"It's easy to be a saint in paradise, but this ain't paradise! It's easy to be a saint on the Enterprise, but it's a little bit harder to be a saint on DS9. Sisko is still kind of a saint, but he's a saint that just has to work a lot harder".</em> <br>
* The first episode to introduce some ambiguity to the character of Gul Dukat. Dukat had appeared five times prior to this episode but had predominantly been depicted as a villain. In this episode, his character is fleshed out, particularly in the scene where he is speaking to the Xepolite. After his conversation, Dukat notices that Kira is looking strangely at him and he smiles to himself. This ambiguity as to Kira's attitude toward Dukat would remain a recurring theme for the duration of the show. However, despite this ambiguity, Nana Visitor herself never wavered from maintaining that there could never be any kind of romantic relationship between Kira and Dukat: <em>"To Kira, Dukat is Hitler. She's not ever going to get over that. She can never forgive him...she will always hate Dukat."</em> <br>
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<center>--</center><br>
<strong>Sisko</strong>: "On Earth, there is no poverty, no crime, no war. You look out the window of Starfleet Headquarters and you see paradise. Well, it's easy to be a saint in paradise, but the Maquis do not live in paradise. Out there in the Demilitarized Zone, all the problems haven't been solved yet. Out there, there are no saints — just people. Angry, scared, determined people who are going to do whatever it takes to survive, whether it meets with Federation approval or not!"<br>
<center>--</center>tag:fanfare.metafilter.com,2015:site.4382Wed, 09 Sep 2015 10:48:21 -0800zarqStar Trek: Deep Space Nine: Blood Oathhttp://fanfare.metafilter.com/4330/Star%2DTrek%2DDeep%2DSpace%2DNine%2DBlood%2DOath%2DRewatch
John "Kor" Colicos, William "Koloth" Campbell and Michael "Kang" Ansara return to <em>Star Trek</em> playing their Original Series characters, in an episode inspired by the classic films <em>The Magnificent Seven</em> and <em>Seven Samurai</em>. <strong>Short Summary</strong><br>
Eighty-one years ago, three now-legendary Klingons destroyed the power base of a pirate leader known as "The Albino." The pirate retaliated by infecting each of their firstborn sons with a deadly virus. Curzon Dax, a close friend of the three Klingons, was godfather to Kang's murdered son. The four of them swore a Klingon "blood oath" to find and kill the Albino. Now, eighty-one years later, Kang says he has finally found him.<br>
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<strong>Trivia</strong><br>
* Colicos had previously played Kor (the first Klingon in the <em>Star Trek</em> franchise) in The Original Series first season episode <a href="http://fanfare.metafilter.com/2008/Star-Trek-Errand-of-Mercy-Rewatch">"Errand of Mercy"</a><br>
* Campbell had appeared as Koloth in <a href="http://fanfare.metafilter.com/3439/Star-Trek-The-Trouble-with-Tribbles-Rewatch">"The Trouble with Tribbles"</a><br>
* Ansara had portrayed Kang in The Original Series third season episode "Day of the Dove". He would return as Kang once more in the <em>Star Trek: Voyager</em> episode "Flashback" which also guest starred George Takei and Grace Lee Whitney from The Original Series as well as several actors from <em>Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country</em>.<br>
* There were concerns that the three actors were no longer working. The casting team on <em>Deep Space Nine</em> tracked down John Colicos and Michael Ansara but couldn't find William Campbell. They subsequently discovered he was doing <em>Star Trek</em> conventions on cruise ships and signed up to appear once he was approached. <br>
* Each of the previous appearances of those Klingon characters had been before the Klingon forehead ridge make-up was in use, and so "Blood Oath" was the first time that each of these characters had been seen with the ridges applied. The writers staff toyed with the idea of having the three Klingons appear as they did in the original Star Trek, but decided against it -- and did not mention the change on screen. When Michael Ansara asked why the Klingons now looked different, he was told "Klingons live to be very, very old and that's a natural physical metamorphosis". <br>
* John Colicos was approached by Michael Piller and allowed to give his own input to the script. Colicos: <em>"When I started reading the script, I spoke to Michael Piller and said, 'I don't really want to play this character, because it's totally contradictory to the original Kor. I have a huge following from the original one, and if he becomes just a buffoon, then I'd honestly rather not do it'. He said, 'No, [Kor] starts out as a rather dipsy, Falstaffian character, but becomes quite heroic in the end'. I said, 'Let me see the last two chapters, before I commit myself finally'. And then there was a question of whether we should all be killed off, whether this was the last hurrah for the 'Over the Hill Klingon' gang. [Piller] said they were contemplating keeping one of us alive, and I said, 'Well, I better be the Ishmael who lives to tell the story'. When they gave me that, I said, 'All right, fine".</em> <br>
* Winrich Kolbe commented <em>"It was the closest thing to Beowulf that I ever saw. There was a mythological quality to it and these guys were real heroes. I played Wagner in my mind the whole day and it had a feel that was beyond episodic television. It was really The Three Musketeers on a smaller scale and I loved it".</em> <br>
* On the return of the TOS actors, Michael Okuda said, <em>"At first, you almost didn't recognize them because they were in heavy Klingon makeup. But as soon as Michael Ansara opened his mouth, there was a powerful sense of déjà vu. Having the three original Klingons on the show was magical for everyone".</em> <br>
* William Campbell commented that he, Michael Ansara and John Colicos all greatly enjoyed the episode: <em>"When it was all over and we finally saw the finished show, we really loved it".</em> One particular scene Campbell enjoyed was the brief scene with Rene Auberjonois. <em>"That was the scene when I walk in to get Colicos out of the drunk tank, and Odo turns around and says, 'How did you get in here?' I say him, 'I am Koloth!' and he says 'You're not answering my question', and my reply is, 'Yes I did'. In other words, Koloth can do anything. An actor can't have a better intro than that, and all the fans who had seen the old show identified him immediately".</em>tag:fanfare.metafilter.com,2015:site.4330Tue, 01 Sep 2015 20:34:39 -0800zarqStar Trek: Deep Space Nine: Playing Godhttp://fanfare.metafilter.com/4278/Star%2DTrek%2DDeep%2DSpace%2DNine%2DPlaying%2DGod%2DRewatch
While hosting her first Trill initiate Dax discovers a tiny, expanding protouniverse that threatens to destroy DS9 and the Bajoran system. <strong>Trivia</strong><br>
* Rule of Acquisition #112: "Never have sex with the boss's sister"<br>
* The script describes the Klingon love song as "Sigmund Rombergesque... the sort of thing Nelson Eddy would have sung to Jeanette MacDonald if they were Klingons..."<br>
* Terry Farrell says of Dax in this episode, "Everything she does in the beginning is an attempt to get Arjin to react to her, to shake him out of his behavior. Because somebody who's really mature enough to be a host would have handled that treatment differently than Arjin did."<br>
* The chess game played between Sisko and Dax in this episode is recognizable as the famous game D. Byrne vs R. Fischer, 1956 (known as the game of the century). The moves shown on screen are roughly moves 14 to 18.tag:fanfare.metafilter.com,2015:site.4278Wed, 26 Aug 2015 11:39:14 -0800zarqStar Trek: Deep Space Nine: Paradisehttp://fanfare.metafilter.com/4223/Star%2DTrek%2DDeep%2DSpace%2DNine%2DParadise%2DRewatch
Commander Sisko and Chief O'Brien are stranded on the planet Aurelius, where the human colonists reject technology. <strong>Notable</strong><br>
* O’Brien agrees to take on Jake as an apprentice as a favor to Sisko. Jake apparently scored very low on mechanical aptitude, and Sisko is concerned that might affect his chances to join Starfleet someday. <br>
* Character Actress <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0834373/">Gail Strickland</a> plays Alixus. The actors playing Cassandra (Julia Nickson) and Stephen (Erick Weiss) both previously had roles on ST:TNG. <br>
* <a href="http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Paradise_%28episode%29">Memory Alpha</a>: Both producer Ira Steven Behr and director Corey Allen were disappointed with the final form of this episode. Behr felt that the show wavers unevenly between depicting the colony both in a good and a bad light, but never really settles for either view; <em>"In terms of what those people were doing, the message of the show always seemed a little unclear. It was a show that worked well, but I don't know if we ever found it. We went back and forth over whether what these people were doing was a positive thing or a negative thing. Star Trek is such a tech show, and making these people antitechnology, it was almost like doing a negative show on Greenpeace."</em> <br>
Allen felt that Alixus comes across as harsher than she should, although he doesn't fault actress Gail Strickland for this. On the contrary, he praises her for giving the character any humanity at all; <em>"Gail and I worked very hard to make that character reasonable, because her motives were right-thinking. She had created a paradise, and she needed to preserve it through discipline. We set out to let her be the reasonable and caring human being that she and I agreed she was, but we were swimming upstream. It didn't come out that way. But I think that it's to Gail's credit that in making the effort the character came out with more human traits."</em> <br>
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-- <br>
<strong>Kira</strong>: "You got a better idea... ?"<br>
<strong>Dax</strong>: "I'm a science officer. It's my job to have a better idea." <br>
--tag:fanfare.metafilter.com,2015:site.4223Wed, 19 Aug 2015 12:34:34 -0800zarqStar Trek: Deep Space Nine: Armageddon Gamehttp://fanfare.metafilter.com/4189/Star%2DTrek%2DDeep%2DSpace%2DNine%2DArmageddon%2DGame%2DRewatch
Unaware they are being used as pawns, Bashir and O'Brien attempt to eliminate a biomechanical weapon used for centuries by two warring societies. <strong>Rule of Acquisition</strong><br>
#57: "Good customers are as rare as latinum. Treasure them"<br>
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<b>Notes</b><br>
* Writer Morgan Gendel's original pitch for this episode involved a Federation team going to an alien civilization and demanding that they destroy their biogenic weaponry. However, the alien race encode the weapon into O'Brien's DNA, meaning that if the Federation want to destroy the weapon, they must kill O'Brien. <br>
Michael Piller changed Gendel's original idea to the plot now seen in the finished episode (i.e . the aliens try to kill O'Brien and Bashir; O'Brien accidentally gets infected; he and Bashir escape; the aliens set out to kill them), and Gendel composed a new teleplay with instructions from Piller to make it like a 'chase movie'. <br>
Gendel wrote his new script based upon this generic type, indeed, he even watched the films <em>Midnight Run</em> and <em>North by Northwest.</em> However, as pre-production got underway, it quickly became apparent that his script, including as it did a number of new ships, several completely new locations, and several exteriors, was financially impossible. As such, the chase aspect of the episode was removed altogether, and, as Ira Steven Behr jokes, "It became a chase movie on one set."<br>
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* This episode is generally seen as the beginning of the O'Brien/Bashir relationship which would become so important over the next few years. According to Alexander Siddig, <em>"That was our first real 'We're stuck together. Nothing we can do about it.' And that's the crux of the relationship. It's as if these two love to hate each other, and they always seem to be stuck together, and although they voluntary walked into the bar together. But nevertheless, it's 'What am I doing stuck here with you?' 'I don't know.' I guess people have friends like that. And this is where that started off."</em> <br>
<br>
* Episode was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Hairstyling for a Series.tag:fanfare.metafilter.com,2015:site.4189Fri, 14 Aug 2015 12:19:03 -0800zarqStar Trek: Deep Space Nine: Rivalshttp://fanfare.metafilter.com/4103/Star%2DTrek%2DDeep%2DSpace%2DNine%2DRivals%2DRewatch
Quark feels threatened when a con artist arrives on the station and opens up a competing bar. Meanwhile, Chief O'Brien is determined to beat Doctor Bashir at racquetball. <strong>Rules of Acquisition</strong> <br>
#47: "Never trust a man wearing a better suit than your own" <br>
#109: "Dignity and an empty sack is worth the sack"<br>
<br>
<strong>Trivia</strong><br>
* The original story pitch focused on the butterfly effect, which was also the original name for the show. Martus Mazur wasn't in this version of the story; instead, he was added later by Michael Piller. Jim Trombetta on the original concept: <em>"Quark gets a device that gives him a lot of good luck, at the expense of other people. Someone had dug up this machine from an ancient civilization and was using it to gamble with. And Quark started having all this good luck, while everyone else was having terrible luck and things were falling apart."</em> He wasn't entirely happy with the finished product. <em>"Ultimately, it seemed a little confusing. I never explained the quantum gambling device adequately.</em><br>
* Joe Menosky: <em>"Writers would come in an say, 'What about the chaos theory?' And someone else would say, 'Well, what about it?' Everyone would struggle but nobody would devise a story. It wasn't until Jim Trombetta pitched that Michael [Piller] saw a story."</em> <br>
* Trombetta himself said it was extremely frustrating developing the story, <em>"because there was this subplot of the racquetball game that they had wanted to put in a number of times and had not been able to, so they put it in this [episode] after I was gone because they felt it made the most sense since this was about games."</em> He goes onto say, <em>"I would have liked to have done more with the quantum-luck thing. I had the idea that if randomness could be managed, then you're in a lot of trouble. Basically, the universe is random; it's a mind boggling thing. Eventually Quark would beat [Martus] by using Mr. Randomness. We never got into that, although I would have liked to."</em> <br>
* Michael Piller conceived Martus Mazur to be the wayward son of Guinan. Guinan herself was to appear in the episode but Whoopi Goldberg was unavailable. All the references to Guinan were removed and only Martus's status as an El-Aurian was retained. <br>
* Theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss pointed out that neutrinos can only exist in only one spin state, the left-handed spin state (antineutrinos, however, are in the right-handed spin state), and therefore Dax could never have discovered a "statistically unlikely" left-handed alignment of whirling neutrinos. Science Advisor Andre Bormanis said of this error, <em>"This was a mistake on my part; I thought neutrinos had multiple spin states like other subatomic particles, and didn't double-check. Well, as Spock noted in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan - nobody's perfect."</em> <br>
* The racquetball court was built on the holosuite set. Due to the cost of putting up and taking down the set, it was decided not to re-use the sport. According to Siddig El Fadil (Julian Bashir), <em>"The dartboard was cheaper, and we started using that in the third season."</em> <br>
* Though the racquetball scenes only took six hours to shoot, there were issues, as El Fadil notes; <em>"The scenes were kind of bizarre because the racquetball court was such an odd shape that the ball would bounce wrong. It was designed in a sci-fi shape, with the walls at all sorts of oblique angles, and you'd hit the ball and you wouldn't know where it would go. So we were chasing these balls around like nutters, until they finally just staged us so we could look like we were shooting the ball where we wanted it to go."</em> <br>
* Of the decision to have O'Brien appear shirtless, director David Livingston commented, <em>"I thought it was important. He represents the common man on the show, and common men, when they get sweaty, take off their shirts. And so what if he doesn't look like Fabio. He looks real, like a human being. And later on, he has this nice loving moment with Keiko, where she hands him his shirt. I fought for that."</em> Robert Hewitt Wolfe noted, <em>"I think it was an attempt to show he's sexy to his wife. There's some sparks between the two of them. We don't see it all the time, but it's a real ongoing thing."</em> On the prospect of being a sex symbol, Colm Meaney (Miles O'Brien) joked, <em>"It would seem to me that there are far more likely candidates for it!"</em> Robert Hewitt Wolfe recalled, <em>"Our e-mail fans really liked the tight suit that Bashir wore in the matches. They liked that a lot."</em><br>
* In-Joke: One of the ingredients in Quark's sedative drink is "dilithium flavoring extract oz. 435" as shown on Bashir's computer screen. <br>
<br>
<strong>Quotes</strong><br>
<strong>Keiko</strong>: "Kick his butt." to Miles, before his racquetball match with Julian<br>
--<br>
<strong>Quark</strong>: "I have a contract for which I paid considerably! All gambling on DS9 happens at Quark's or it doesn't happen!"<br>
<strong>Sisko</strong>: "A few bribes to the Cardassians when they ran this place doesn't constitute a contract. Not in the eyes of the Federation."<br>
<strong>Quark</strong>: "He's a con artist...a crook!"<br>
<strong>Sisko</strong>: "One more won't make much difference."<br>
<strong>Quark</strong>: "You owe me! You begged me to stay here when you first came on board, and I did. Against my better judgment."<br>
<strong>Sisko</strong>: "I didn't beg, I blackmailed you. And don't pretend it hasn't paid off for you, either."<br>
-- <br>
<br>
<em>[O'Brien returns from a demoralizing racquetball game with Bashir]</em><br>
<strong>Quark</strong>: "What was the score?"<br>
<strong>O'Brien</strong>: "Who cares?"<br>
<strong>Quark</strong>: "<em>I</em> care. I'm listening. Tell me your problems. All of them."<br>
<strong>O'Brien</strong>: "I've got no problems a good drop shot wouldn't cure."<br>
<strong>Quark</strong>: "He beat you."<br>
<strong>O'Brien</strong>: "Only by half a step, that's all! He's got a few years on me, so what? I... I've got more experience."<br>
<strong>Quark</strong>: <em>[to himself]</em> "The aging champion...."<br>
<strong>O'Brien</strong>: "...got spin shots he's never seen."<br>
<strong>Quark</strong>: "...versus the daring challenger..."<br>
<strong>O'Brien</strong>: "So I had a few breaks, huh? One more game, that's all I needed!"<br>
<strong>Quark:</strong> "Come one, come all..."<br>
<strong>O'Brien</strong>: "I'd have kicked him all over the court. He knows it too."<br>
<strong>Quark</strong>: "Welcome to Quark's!"<br>
<strong>O'Brien</strong>: <em>[annoyed]</em> "Thanks!"<br>
<strong>Quark</strong>: "Don't mention it."tag:fanfare.metafilter.com,2015:site.4103Wed, 05 Aug 2015 06:01:34 -0800zarqStar Trek: Deep Space Nine: Second Sighthttp://fanfare.metafilter.com/4040/Star%2DTrek%2DDeep%2DSpace%2DNine%2DSecond%2DSight%2DRewatch
While noted scientist Gideon Seyetik is preparing for an ambitious project to re-ignite a star, Sisko is intrigued by a woman who keeps disappearing. <strong>Trivia</strong><br>
* <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salli_Richardson">Salli Richardson-Whitfield</a> (Fenna/Nidell) would go on to play Dr. Allison Blake on <em>Eureka</em>. She also voiced the character of Elisa Maza in<em> Gargoyles</em>, one of many Star Trek alums who were part of that series. <br>
* This was one of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Kiley">Richard Kiley</a>'s (Seyetik) last television roles. The three-time Emmy-Award winning actor passed away in 1999. <br>
* Mark Gehred-O'Connell's original pitch for this episode involved Bashir meeting a mysterious woman who keeps disappearing. He goes to his colleagues for aid in tracking her down but he discovers that no one aboard the station has ever seen her except himself, and as such, he has to unravel the mystery alone, as his crewmates begin to think he's imagining the whole thing. Bashir ultimately discovers that the woman is in fact a projection by a woman who is abused by her husband. This original version of the story was more of an adventure/mystery than a romance. <br>
* Changing the story to focus on Sisko rather than Bashir was Michael Piller's idea, because he felt that the Sisko character had become far too aloof, and he saw this episode as a way to humanize him. According to Ira Steven Behr, <em>"During the second season, Michael kept saying 'Let's define Sisko.' That's when he and I had conversations about making Sisko the builder, on establishing the difference between him and Picard, the explorer. Sisko is a builder, he stays with a project until the finish. That helped us to see Sisko in a whole lot of different ways. He's a guy who's solid and real and human."</em> The writers felt that giving Sisko a romance would help them to better define the character, and would help the audience to better connect with him on an emotional level. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)<br>
* Seyetik was based on director John Huston.<br>
* According to Robert Hewitt Wolfe, Seyetik's terraforming technology is based upon the Genesis Device as seen in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan; <em>"It was established Federation terraforming technology. Of course, the Genesis device didn't work, but obviously Seyetik's work is built upon the research of previous scientists. And it was a nice way to reference the movie."</em> <br>
* This episode is not a favorite of Ira Steven Behr. He commented <em>"For the show to work, Sisko had to respect Seyetik, and for whatever reason, there was never any current of understanding between Sisko and him. And for me, the show fell apart. The audience had to like Seyetik. He kills himself. How many times do we see a guy commit suicide on Star Trek? It was a great ending, an ending worthy of John Huston, but it just seemed like some other wacky thing this character was doing. You didn't feel the sorrow."</em> <br>
* The poem referenced by both Seyetik and Sisko is referred to as The Fall of Kang, and it is implied that the poem is about Kang's last great battle. However, ten episodes later, in "Blood Oath", Kang turns up on DS9 alive and well. The Kang in the poem is apparently a different Kang.<br>
<br>
<strong>Quotes</strong><br>
--<br>
<strong>Sisko</strong>: "Personal log, stardate 47329.4. I finally realize why I've had trouble sleeping the last few nights. Yesterday was the 4th anniversary of the massacre at Wolf 359, the fourth anniversary of Jennifer's death. I'm not sure what bothers me more: the date itself, or the fact that it almost passed unnoticed." <br>
--<br>
<b>Kira</b>: "Commander, do you think he'd notice if we weren't here when he got back?"<br>
<strong>Sisko</strong>: "Don't even think about it, Major. I've had dinner with about two dozen Bajoran ministers, I think you owe me this one. Besides, Seyetik is one of the Federation's greatest minds."<br>
<strong>Kira</strong>: "I know, he told me." <br>
--tag:fanfare.metafilter.com,2015:site.4040Wed, 29 Jul 2015 05:36:28 -0800zarqStar Trek: Deep Space Nine: Rules of Acquisitionhttp://fanfare.metafilter.com/3991/Star%2DTrek%2DDeep%2DSpace%2DNine%2DRules%2Dof%2DAcquisition%2DRewatch
Quark represents Grand Nagus Zek in a plot to establish a Ferengi business presence in the Gamma Quadrant. Pel, a young Ferengi, teams up with Quark and they learn that to do business in the Gamma Quadrant they must contact the Keremma, a member race of the Dominion. <strong>Trivia</strong><br>
* First episode to mention the Dominion. <br>
* First on-screen appearance of a Ferengi female in Star Trek.<br>
* Rule of Acquisition #21, Never place friendship above profit<br>
* Rule of Acquisition #22, A wise man can hear profit in the wind<br>
* Rule of Acquisition #33, It never hurts to suck up to the boss<br>
* Rule of Acquisition #48, The bigger the smile, the sharper the knife<br>
* Rule of Acquisition #59, Free advice is seldom cheap<br>
* Rule of Acquisition #62, The riskier the road, the greater the profit<br>
* Rule of Acquisition #103, Sleep can interfere with.... (Quark interrupted Pel halfway through this Rule. It is never repeated in the series. <br>
* Episode was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Makeup for a Series. <br>
* First episode to mention the Dominion, which would go on to become an integral power in the series. The Karemma are also mentioned for the first time. <br>
* The decision to place the initial mention of the Dominion in an otherwise inconsequential "comedy" episode was deliberately intended to throw the viewers off.<br>
* In the <em>The Birth of the Dominion and Beyond</em> documentary on the DS9 Season 3 DVD, several of the writers give their views on the need to create a specific identity for the Gamma Quadrant:<br>
- Michael Piller: <em>"I can remember that once we decided that we were going to go deeply into the wormhole, that we essentially were forcing ourselves to decide for ourselves what we were going to find there."</em><br>
- Ira Steven Behr: <em>"We just felt that having done a year and a half of the show at that time, that we had such a rich backdrop that we hadn't yet explored. What's on the other side of the wormhole? Is it just more space?"</em><br>
- Robert Hewitt Wolfe: <em>"We just felt it was time to give a face to the Gamma Quadrant. Voyager was going to be wandering through the Delta Quadrant from place to place, meeting new people every week, and we wanted to make the Gamma Quadrant distinctly different from that, by creating the Dominion, a sort of unifying anti-Federation in a way, just to give it a completely different character."</em>tag:fanfare.metafilter.com,2015:site.3991Wed, 22 Jul 2015 06:10:13 -0800zarqStar Trek: Deep Space Nine: Cardassianshttp://fanfare.metafilter.com/3937/Star%2DTrek%2DDeep%2DSpace%2DNine%2DCardassians%2DRewatch
Garak investigates the identity of a Cardassian boy abandoned on Bajor. <center>--<br>
<strong>Garak</strong>: "I believe in coincidences. Coincidences happen every day. <br>
But I don't <em>trust</em> coincidences."<br>
--</center> <br>
<strong>Trivia</strong><br>
* This is the first reference to the Cardassian name of Deep Space 9, Terok Nor, and also the first time hostility between Garak and Dukat is hinted at. <br>
* Marc Alaimo commented "As an actor, when I got the script, I didn't realize Dukat was being set up to take the blame. But I played him as a man who was being set up. A man who was taking the dive because he had wanted to remove the children but his orders were to leave them". <br>
* Andrew Robinson commented that "the best thing about that was the scene where [Garak] and Bashir go to Bajor and run into the orphans. We learned a little more about their culture, that children without parents have no status in Cardassian society, so they just abandoned them. The fact that Garak was faced with this, and realized that there is something very basically wrong about it, was great". <br>
* This is the first time since the pilot that Gul Dukat has visited DS9.<br>
* When Dukat, Sisko, and Pa'Dar are discussing the orphaned children, displayed in the background is the star chart that was prominently shown in Remmick's office in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Conspiracy".<br>
<br>
<center>--<br>
<strong>Pa'Dar</strong>: "On Cardassia, family is everything. We care for our parents and children with equal devotion. <br>
In some households, four generations eat at the same table. Family... is everything." <br>
--</center>tag:fanfare.metafilter.com,2015:site.3937Wed, 15 Jul 2015 07:33:01 -0800zarqStar Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Seigehttp://fanfare.metafilter.com/3886/Star%2DTrek%2DDeep%2DSpace%2DNine%2DThe%2DSeige
As a Circle-led Bajoran military tries to occupy the station, a skeleton crew led by Sisko fight to reveal the political faction's big secret before they are forced to evacuate themselves. Meanwhile, Kira and Dax lead a mission to reveal the truth about The Circle on Bajor. --<br>
<strong>Quark</strong>: "Hey, Odo! You'll miss me. You know you will, say it."<br>
<strong>Odo</strong>: "I'll miss you, Quark."<br>
<strong>Quark</strong>: <em>[stunned]</em> "You said it!"<br>
<strong>Odo</strong>: "I'll miss the aggravation... the petty theft... the bad manners...."<br>
<strong>Quark</strong>: "Odo, take care of yourself." <br>
--<br>
<br>
<u>Trivia</u><br>
* Rule of Acquisition #31: "Never make fun of a Ferengi's mother."<br>
* The palukoo spider model was a favorite of <a href="http://www.startrek.com/article/remembering-longtime-star-trek-prop-master-joe-longo">the now deceased propmaster for DS9, Joe Longo</a>: <em>"The effects guy found that. He was going by a garage sale and got it for about two bucks. It wasn't hairy at the time. It was a plastic spider and mechanical, and it wasn't scary or ugly, just big. But it was exactly what I needed, so I got it from him. I took it out to the special effects shop and had them the motor in it with a remote, then over to Michael Westmore and had him put all the hair on it and put in its teeth. The funny thing was, as I remember, that when we brought it up to Mr. Berman, he looked at it and he liked it. I showed him how it moved with the remote, but it was real slow. He said he'd like to see it move much faster, so I sent it back out to the shop and had them put a heavier motor in it I brought it back up for him to look at it again. When I got there, I had the secretary open the door for me and I had the spider run in the room on its own. They all did double takes and really liked it. You only see it real quickly in the show, because if you spend any amount of time on it you can tell exactly what it is"</em>.<br>
* Producer Peter Allan Fields disagreed with the killing of the character Li Nalas, and he felt that it trivialized the events of the "The Homecoming"; <em>"It seemed to me that killing him would just send us back to square one. Why spend three episodes with this guy, and then let him die? You're back as if he'd never been around. We could have written the whole thing without him."</em> Writer Ira Steven Behr counters this by saying there were two primary reasons for killing the character: 1) to complete his arc there had to be a moment of true sacrifice and heroism (<em>"I just felt that this was a man who was living a lie, and at the end there needed to be a form of redemption, one that involved some self-sacrifice."</em>), and 2) the producers didn't want to make Li a recurring character because they weren't sure if they would be able to afford to bring back actor Richard Beymer in the future. As a result of this, the character of Shakaar was introduced in the third season to perform a similar function as that performed by Li in the Circle Trilogy.tag:fanfare.metafilter.com,2015:site.3886Thu, 09 Jul 2015 05:50:44 -0800zarqStar Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Homecominghttp://fanfare.metafilter.com/3843/Star%2DTrek%2DDeep%2DSpace%2DNine%2DThe%2DHomecoming%2DRewatch
Quark gives Kira a Bajoran earring he claims was sent as a message from a Cardassian mining planet, which leads her to rescue a Bajoran prisoner of war; meanwhile, an extremist group begins to take control of Bajor. Welcome to Season Two!<br>
<br>
<strong>Trivia</strong><br>
* This episode is the first of a three-part story arc. It was the first such arc in <em>Star Trek</em> history. The next one wouldn't happen until <em>Star Trek: Enterprise's</em> three part arc that began with "Borderland," which aired almost eleven years later.<br>
* The seventy-sixth Rules of Acquisition is mentioned: <em>"Every once in a while, declare peace. It confuses the hell out of your enemies."</em><br>
* Leslie Bevis makes her first appearance as Rionoj, the Boslic freighter captain, in this episode. She later appears in the season three episode "The Abandoned" and the season 4 finale "Broken Link", where her character is named.<br>
* Tony Award-winning actor <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Langella">Frank Langella</a>, who plays Minister Jaro Essa, was uncredited in this and the following two episodes that he appears in, at his request, because he did the show for his children who were fans of the series, not for exposure or money.<br>
* Vedek Winn makes a reference to "the orbs" (plural). Kai Opaka had previously said that only the First orb was on Bajor, and that the Cardassians had all of the others.<br>
* Lin Nalas' character was changed from a reluctant hero to a mistaken one by Ira Steven Behr, who wanted to base him on the 1962 John Ford movie <em>The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,</em> which deals with the notion that a legend can be more important than the facts upon which it is based.tag:fanfare.metafilter.com,2015:site.3843Fri, 03 Jul 2015 08:44:38 -0800zarqStar Trek: Deep Space Nine: Duethttp://fanfare.metafilter.com/3762/Star%2DTrek%2DDeep%2DSpace%2DNine%2DDuet%2DRewatch
After a Cardassian man arrives on the station suffering from an illness that he could only have contracted at a Bajoran labor camp during the Occupation, Major Kira leads an investigation to determine whether he is actually a notorious war criminal. Watch for free on <a href="http://www.hulu.com/watch/441144">Hulu</a><br>
<br>
<b>Longer Summary</b><br>
"<a href="http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/star-trek-deep-space-nine-duet-70951">Once upon a time, the Cardassians controlled Bajor, and they did horrible things.</a> We’ve heard about the occupation before, but in “Duet,” Kira gives a speech about what she saw while liberating a forced-labor camp, and it’s the most direct description of the atrocities committed against her people that the show has given us. She talks about broken bodies, minds destroyed, and of captives humiliated, starved, and beaten, and her voice catches on the words. So when an apparent survivor from the camp arrives on the station, she’s eager to meet him. The visitor requires immediate treatment for an affliction known as Kalla-Nohra, which only affects individuals who were at Gallitepp, the labor camp, during a mining accident. Kira rushes to the infirmary to greet the new guest, but instead of a Bajoran, she finds a Cardassian named Aamin Marritza receiving Bashir’s ministrations. Kira demands Marritza’s immediate arrest, because she knows he had to have been there, and he has to be responsible. Except Marritza denies any direct involvement in the torture of Bajoran citizens; he claims he was just a file clerk. Kira thinks he’s lying, and that’s when things get interesting."<br>
<br>
<strong>Notes</strong><br>
* A <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottle_episode">bottle episode</a>. <br>
* Significant character development for Kira. <br>
* The story was inspired in part by Robert Shaw's stage play (and <a href="http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-man-in-the-glass-booth-1975">movie</a>) <em>The Man in the Glass Booth</em>, which tells of a Jewish man who is accused of being a Nazi war criminal. That play in turn is based on actual events that took place after World War II, such as the Nuremberg Trials and the hunt for top ranking Nazi officials who escaped Germany and made up new identities for themselves, such as Adolf Eichmann.<br>
* The intent of the episode was to establish the Cardassian Occupation of Bajor as a metaphor for British, American, Japanese and German imperialism circa World War II. <br>
* Both Armin Shimerman (Quark) and Nana Visitor (Kira Nerys) count this episode among their favorites. Shimerman observed that the episode works because of "the writing and the directing and the acting all coalescing perfectly", which Nana Visitor believed was because it had "such important things to say".<br>
* In The New Trek Programme Guide, the authors comment that "Duet" was "the pinnacle of the season, a tightly plotted and allusive tale that could be 'about' the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, the modern Nazi's re-writing of World War Two or even Bosnia. Although the juxtaposition with the previous episode is less than ideal, with Kira seeming to go behind Sisko's back to get what she wants, the strength of the script and the performances more than make up for this. Harris Yulin excels as the coward who personalised the guilt of an entire race. This powerful and absorbing drama is also very Roddenberryesque: Kira realises, just before the clever twist ending, that his being a Cardassian is not reason enough to want to kill him".<br>
* Episode was critically acclaimed and featured in the Museum of Television and Radio's 1994 "Tribute to Excellence"tag:fanfare.metafilter.com,2015:site.3762Wed, 24 Jun 2015 11:20:26 -0800zarqStar Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Forsakenhttp://fanfare.metafilter.com/3681/Star%2DTrek%2DDeep%2DSpace%2DNine%2DThe%2DForsaken%2DRewatch
Dr. Bashir is assigned "babysitting" duty for four visiting ambassadors. O'Brien deals with an alien computer program downloaded from a probe. Odo copes with a deeply infatuated Lwaxana <em>"Daughter of the Fifth House, holder of the Sacred Chalice of Rixx, heir to the Holy Rings of Betazed"</em> Troi.tag:fanfare.metafilter.com,2015:site.3681Wed, 17 Jun 2015 12:32:13 -0800zarqStar Trek: Deep Space Nine: Progresshttp://fanfare.metafilter.com/3615/Star%2DTrek%2DDeep%2DSpace%2DNine%2DProgress%2DRewatch
Kira must convince an old Bajoran farmer to leave a moon becoming uninhabitable due to mining operations. Jake and Nog try to trade off Cardassian yamok sauce. <u><b>Quotes</b></u><br>
<strong>Kira</strong>: "When I was very small, I remember there was this tree right outside my window. It was the ugliest, most gnarled and battered old tree I'd ever seen. Even the birds stayed away from it."<br>
<strong>Mullibok</strong>: "But you loved it, huh?"<br>
<strong>Kira</strong>: "I hated it! Because it had grown so huge, its branches blocked out the sun for kellipates, and its roots buried themselves so deep in the soil, nothing else could grow there. Oh, it was a... big, selfish, annoying..."<br>
<strong>Mullibok</strong>: "...nasty..."<br>
<strong>Kira</strong>:" ...nasty... nasty old tree."<br>
<strong>Mullibok</strong>: "Hmmm... Sounds to me like it had a lot of character."<br>
<strong>Kira</strong>: "A lot."<br>
-- <br>
<strong>Sisko</strong>: "Look, I understand you're used to sympathizing with the underdog. You spent your life fighting to overcome impossible odds, just like he's doing. But you have to realize something, Major: you're on the other side now. Pretty uncomfortable, isn't it?"<br>
<strong>Kira</strong>: "It's awful."tag:fanfare.metafilter.com,2015:site.3615Wed, 10 Jun 2015 11:07:07 -0800zarqStar Trek: Deep Space Nine: Battle Lineshttp://fanfare.metafilter.com/3542/Star%2DTrek%2DDeep%2DSpace%2DNine%2DBattle%2DLines%2DRewatch
After showing Bajoran spiritual leader Kai Opaka the wormhole, she, Sisko, Bashir and Kira crash land on a moon in the Gamma Quadrant where the dead come back to life. <strong>Notes</strong><br>
* "Battle Lines" was one of the stunt performer crew's favorite Star Trek episodes, especially for Dennis Madalone, who directed two days of first unit stunt work. Madalone commented: "That's the only one that ever let me take over the whole set. The director said, 'This is fights all day with the actors. Can you just direct it?' So I directed two days of First Unit of all those battles. I was in the fights too, but I made sure I put myself in the back of the battle so I could cover myself separately and still direct all the action stuff. I kept going up to the director and saying, 'Do you like it?' and he would say, 'Yeah, just print it'. He was reading a magazine the whole time. It was crazy, but a lot of fun!"<br>
* Kai Opaka leaves the Alpha Quadrant in this episode, making her final 'real' appearance in the series. She does appear later in "The Collaborator" and "Accession" in orb experiences and orb shadows.<br>
* This episode marks the first time a DS9 runabout is destroyed. The <em>Yangtzee</em> <em>Kiang</em> was later replaced by the <em>Orinoco</em>. <br>
* This episode was one of the first to state exactly what the United Federation of Planets is. Commander Sisko's response to Zlangco's question was that it <em>"is made up of over a hundred planets who have allied themselves for mutual scientific, cultural and defensive benefits. The mission that my people and I are on is to explore the galaxy"</em>. Jean-Luc Picard later says something similar to Lily Sloane in <em>Star Trek: First Contact</em>.tag:fanfare.metafilter.com,2015:site.3542Wed, 03 Jun 2015 06:45:58 -0800zarqStar Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Nagushttp://fanfare.metafilter.com/3475/Star%2DTrek%2DDeep%2DSpace%2DNine%2DThe%2DNagus%2DRewatch
The Ferengi's greatest politician and leader, the Grand Nagus, comes to the station. He seems very interested in Quark's bar.... <strong>Notes</strong><br>
* David Livingston pitched the original story idea for this episode, dealing with Quark acting as some sort of a businessman, with the B plot having Jake teaching Nog how to read. The producers liked the B story idea, but disliked the A story. Finally, on a story meeting, Michael Piller came up with the idea of "doing The Godfather", and Ira Steven Behr was assigned to write the script. Livingston's only contribution to "The Godfather story" was the name Zek. <br>
<br>
* Ira Steven Behr commented "David Livingston pitched me an idea for a meeting of the great criminal minds of the galaxy, similar to The Godfather. I said to him, 'Maybe we should do a Ferengi episode', so his idea evolved into "The Nagus". I looked through the thesaurus for a good expression for leader and found negus, an Indian word, which I changed to nagus and Grand Nagus Zek, leader of the Ferengi empire was born. With the Ferengi being intergalactic capitalists I also knew that we needed a financial bible for them and after some thought I came up the Rules of Acquisition".<br>
<br>
* The scene where Quark meets Nava is an homage to the opening scene of Francis Ford Coppola's 1972 movie <em>The Godfather</em>. Quark's Corvan gilvo, the way he scratches his ear, the blinds on the windows, even the dialog ("Yet now you call me Nagus") are all allusions to the 1972 film.<br>
<br>
* Armin Shimerman cites "The Nagus" as the episode that convinced the producers that Star Trek: Deep Space Nine would be able to produce comedic episodes as well as serious ones. Shimerman commented: "'The Nagus' was interesting, but also nerve-wracking for me because it was the first episode where they told me, 'OK, you're going to shoulder this; everybody else can go home', and it was my responsibility to make the episode work. Suddenly, I was the key member doing the work. Since that time, there have been many Ferengi episodes where it has just been me, or Max and me, and it works out that way now. We have sort of a wheel, where in every episode, one of the characters shoulders the load, and everybody else gets the time off. Whatever success we had on 'The Nagus' convinced the writers, and, more importantly, the producers, that we could have purely comic episodes and the audience wouldn't leave us in droves. There are probably many people who grimace when they see there's going to be a Ferengi episode next week, but I think there are even more who are looking forward to the comic episodes, and that was something Rick Berman and company learned from 'The Nagus'. William Shakespeare taught us that - whenever he had a history play like Henry V, he made sure to have a character like Falstaff in there to lighten it up".<br>
<br>
* This episode features the first appearance of Wallace Shawn as Zek and Tiny Ron as Maihar'du.<br>
<br>
* The Rules of Acquisition are mentioned for the first time in this episode. The two Rules mentioned are the first, "once you have their money, you never give it back" and the sixth, "Never let family stand in the way of opportunity". That last one is maybe the most broken rule in the show.<br>
<br>
* This episode also establishes the Ferengi use of “lobes” as a metaphor for, among other things, virility, guts, greed, and other manly (Ferengi-ly?) attitudes; and also the funereal customs of high-ranking Ferengi, selling their vacuum-desiccated remains.<br>
<br>
* Morn laughs at Quark’s joke about Andorians, which is the only time he opens his mouth and makes a noise at any time during the series run.<br>
<br>
* Oops: Odo turns to liquid in order to board Zek’s ship, which means the portal isn’t water tight, which is kind of a problem for a spacefaring ship....<br>
<br>
<center>--<br>
<b>Grand Nagus Zek:</b>"You failed! <em>Miserably!</em>"<br>
--</center>tag:fanfare.metafilter.com,2015:site.3475Wed, 27 May 2015 06:35:11 -0800zarqStar Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Passengerhttp://fanfare.metafilter.com/3402/Star%2DTrek%2DDeep%2DSpace%2DNine%2DThe%2DPassenger%2DRewatch
Captured criminal Rao Vantika dies in Bashir's arms... or did he? <center>--<br>
<b>Bashir</b>: "Fate has granted me a gift, Major: a gift to be a healer."<br>
<b>Kira</b>: "I feel privileged to be in your presence."<br>
--</center><br>
<br>
<strong>Notes</strong> <i>(Cribbed from <a href="http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/The_Passenger">here</a>.)</i><br>
* Morgan Gendel's original story was to have Kajada possessed by Vantika. Gendel commented "I thought the idea of a cop who's chasing himself was something you could only do in a science fiction show. <br>
* Gendel also scripted a song for Quark to sing but decided not to use it: "I had [Quark] singing a whole little ditty, like a Hobbit. I took a day to write this ditty about making money while he's serving people and shorting them on their drinks. I thought it was hysterical and also thought if I turned it in, they were going to laugh me out of the room". <br>
* All of Alexander Siddig's original on-set dialogue as Vantika in the episode was dubbed in post-production. Rick Berman: "We had a very odd experience on the show. Siddig made a choice of a voice that didn't work for us. It was too Bela Lugosi-like, and we replaced his entire part with him again, but we had him do it a different way. We didn't really know if it would work or not, but it was fine".<br>
* Several people involved with the episode commented on Quark's role, as his actions are the first illegal action the character was involved in in the series. Armin Shimerman commented: "He is still the middle-man. I say that in the episode, 'I'm just the middle-man', when they ask me if I'm going with them. He's just trying to make a buck. But it was a darker Quark, getting back to the Quark of I think of in "Emissary". And that's good. Anytime that I get close to that I feel a little bit better. I feel more confident with that. Drama is always easier to play than comedy". Paul Lynch commented: "[Quark] is suckered in over his head by his own greed. He doesn't really go looking for trouble, and if he had known what he was getting into he wouldn't have, but his own greed overruled him".tag:fanfare.metafilter.com,2015:site.3402Wed, 20 May 2015 07:05:49 -0800zarqStar Trek: Deep Space Nine: Q-Lesshttp://fanfare.metafilter.com/3325/Star%2DTrek%2DDeep%2DSpace%2DNine%2DQ%2DLess%2DRewatch
Campy, omnipotent prankster god Q visits DS9 to spar with Sisko, accompanied by <a href="http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Vash">Vash</a>. <center>--<br>
<b>Q</b>: "Still chasing your own tail? Picard and his lackeys would have solved all this technobabble hours ago. <br>
No wonder you're not commanding a starship."<br>
--</center> <br>
<br>
<b>Notes</b> <i>(Cribbed from <a href="http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Q-Less_%28episode%29">here</a>)</i><br>
* According to the Deep Space Nine Companion, the scene in which Q is surprised that Sisko has hit him, is a sign of the writers' attempts to differentiate Sisko's character from Jean-Luc Picard. Robert Hewitt Wolfe says of the difference between the two characters "Picard is an explorer, and in some ways, very much an intellectual. Sisko is a builder, a different kind of guy. He wears his heart a little more on his sleeve, and he acts on emotion, on instinct, more than Picard." Furthermore, de Lancie himself points out, "Q's relationship with Picard has always been a battle of wits, but I come into Deep Space Nine, and Sisko just bopped me on the nose! From a character point of view, that's a very big difference."<br>
* Armin Shimerman enjoyed watching Avery Brooks and John de Lancie film as de Lancie had been playing Q for five years at the time of the episode and "Q-Less" was just the fifth Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode after the pilot "Emissary". Shimerman commented: "It was interesting to watch the two of them together. It was an interesting dynamic because Avery is the lead and so he has the responsibility and that recognition in himself. Yet John de Lancie came on the set with his own agenda, which is that he has played Q quite often and is very familiar with his end and thought of us sort of as the new kids. We were the regulars, he was the guest star, but he felt like he was the regular and we were the visitors". de Lancie replied to this: "I love that Armin quote. I think that one of the things I had to be careful about is I couldn't be so chameleon like as to be a different character just because I was on a different set. I had to carry on in the way that I know works for The Next Generation and carry it into the new show so it would be seamless in a way. There would be kind of a bigness about Q that maybe permeates the tide pool". <br>
* Ira Behr enjoyed writing Q's line about technobabble, commenting "it was a line we wrote with great glee, because at that point we hated the goddamned technobabble". <br>
* This episode contains Deep Space Nine's third reference to the animated television series Ren and Stimpy. The name of the planet Hoek IV in the episode is named after the main character "Ren Höek." The first two Ren and Stimpy references are found in "Babel", where the Ren and Stimpy inspired names Surmak Ren and Spumco are referenced.<br>
* This episode features six characters who also appeared in Star Trek: The Next Generation: Chief O'Brien, Dr. Bashir, Quark, Q, Vash, and Morn (although only O'Brien, Q, and Vash originated on TNG). <br>
<br>
<center>--<br>
<b>Odo</b>: <em>[channeling George Carlin]</em>: "I'll never understand this obsession with accumulating material wealth. You spend your entire life plotting and scheming to acquire more and more possessions until your living areas are bursting with useless junk. Then you die, your relatives sell everything, and start the cycle all over again."<br>
--</center>tag:fanfare.metafilter.com,2015:site.3325Wed, 13 May 2015 07:14:47 -0800zarqStar Trek: Deep Space Nine: Babelhttp://fanfare.metafilter.com/3256/Star%2DTrek%2DDeep%2DSpace%2DNine%2DBabel%2DRewatch
A deadly aphasia virus hits DS9. Kira tries to track down an antidote. <center>--<br>
<b>O'Brien</b>: "'Fix the replicators, chief!' 'My console's offline, chief!' Should've transferred to a cargo drone. No people, no complaints."<br>
--</center><br>
<br>
<strong>Themes / Of Note</strong> <em>(Mild Spoilers)</em><br>
* Echoes of the Cardassian Occupation and Bajoran Resistance Movement<br>
* Quark cites an “old Ferengi saying” that you should never ask when you can take. The Rules of Acquisition haven't yet been created on the show. <br>
* Character development: Sisko and Jake's relationship (Possibly the first parent/child interaction in any incarnation of Trek that’s purely positive.)<br>
* Character development: Odo and Quark's relationship<br>
* Character development: Kira's new role, which again puts her at odds with the former Bajoran Resistant Movement. <br>
* Offhand Mention That Will Become A Thing Later: Jake says he's been hanging out with Nog.<br>
* O'Brien dealing with the malfunctioning station.<br>
<br>
<b>Notes</b> <em>(mostly cribbed from <a href="http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Babel_%28episode%29">here</a>)</em> <br>
* The episode title is (obviously) a reference to the biblical Tower of Babel<br>
* Babel has its roots in TNG's problem-of-the-week style episodes. <br>
* This episode contains two references from the animated television series <em>Ren and Stimpy</em>. The first reference used was in the name of the Bajoran, Surmak Ren, who was named after the co-main character "Ren Höek." The second reference was made in the name of the Cardassian Gul Spumco, who was named after Spümcø, the animation studio responsible for the Ren and Stimpy series. A third Ren and Stimpy reference would appear two episodes later, in "Q-Less", in the name of the planet Hoek IV, which was again named after "Ren Höek." Ira Steven Behr chose to show episodes of <em>The Ren and Stimpy Show</em> to improve relations between the writers. <br>
* The scene where Sisko goes into the infirmary to find Jake has come down with the aphasia virus was extremely important to actor Avery Brooks because it was the first scene to establish the 'physical' intimacy between father and son -- an aspect of the characters' onscreen relationship that was initiated by Brooks himself; "It wasn't a thematic element. I don't have any trouble being physical with my children. That's a part of my nature, as opposed to something they wrote about Sisko and Jake. The first day I met Cirroc, I hugged him. And I hug him every time I see him."<br>
* This episode is a favorite of actor Armin Shimerman as he feels it is here that he really began to get a handle on the character of Quark. Speaking of the moment when Quark is left in charge of Ops, and is clearly loving the situation, Shimerman comments that he realized "Ah, this is the character, this guy who likes to have a good time, who enjoys life and who feels that no problem is insurmountable. And that fun-loving spirit and delight became ingrained in my character at that moment."<br>
* After he repaired the replicator at the beginning of the episode O'Brien ordered his coffee "black, double sweet" which is consistent with his coffee order in TNG's "Rascals".<br>
<br>
<center>--<br>
<b>Quark</b>: "I'll beam you over."<br>
<b>Odo</b>: "You?"<br>
<b>Quark</b>: "Relax. I served on a Ferengi freighter for eight years."<br>
<b>Odo</b>: "All right."<br>
<b>Quark</b>: "I must have witnessed the procedure hundreds of times!"<br>
<b>Odo</b>: "WITNESSED?! You mean to say you never handled the controls yourself?"<br>
<b>Quark</b>: "Energizing!" *waves*<br>
--</center>tag:fanfare.metafilter.com,2015:site.3256Tue, 05 May 2015 22:54:59 -0800zarqStar Trek: Deep Space Nine: Past Prologuehttp://fanfare.metafilter.com/3186/Star%2DTrek%2DDeep%2DSpace%2DNine%2DPast%2DPrologue%2DRewatch
A member of the Bajoran underground seeks asylum on DS9, attracting the attention of the Cardassians and Klingons, and testing Kira's loyalties. <center>--<br>
<strong>Garak</strong>: <em>"Oh, it's just Garak. Plain, simple Garak."</em><br>
--</center><br>
<br>
<strong>Themes</strong> <i>(Mild Spoilers)</i><br>
* “Bajor for Bajorans!” Bajor’s progression from an oppressed and occupied world to player on the galactic stage. <br>
* Bajoran freedom fighters adapting to the new world order. <br>
* Character development: Garak, Odo, Bashir, Kira, Sisko <br>
* Klingons and Cardassians as power players in DS9's neck of the woods. <br>
<br>
<strong>Introduced in this episode</strong><br>
* <strong>Garak</strong>, a Cardassian tailor and Promenade shopkeeper of <em>Garak's Clothiers</em> who lives on Deep Space 9. He's an exile from the Cardassian Empire. <br>
* Federation <strong>Admiral Rollman</strong>, played by Susan Bay, widow of Star Trek <strike>alum</strike> legend Leonard "Spock" Nimoy. Mrs. Bay will return in the Season 2 episode "Whispers."<br>
<br>
<center>--<br>
<strong>Odo</strong>: <em>"You know, Cardassian rule may have been oppressive but at least it was... simple."</em><br>
--</center><br>
<br>
<strong>Notes</strong> (mostly cribbed from <a href="http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Past_Prologue_%28episode%29">here</a>) <br>
* This was the very first episode of the entire Star Trek franchise in which no ship named Enterprise appears.<br>
* This episode marks the first time Dr. Bashir uses the expression, <em>"I'm a doctor, not a...."</em><br>
* Getting Garak's characterization right was important to both the crew and his actor, Andrew Robinson. Of the origins of the character, producer Peter Allan Fields says that "we needed a Cardassian who didn't act like one, so I finally put him in a tailor shop, and nobody hit me, so we kept him there." Director Winrich Kolbe says of the performance that "we agreed that Andy could push the envelope, but he couldn't leave the Cardassian platform. We had long talks about wardrobe and makeup, but we also talked about attitude, so that he would retain that stiffness that you see in all Cardassians." Finally, Andrew Robinson himself says of the character, "he's all subtext. If a smart guy like Garak says that he's 'plain and simple', you realize that he's not plain and not simple. And that there is a lot going on. Regardless of how innocuous or simple each line is, there's always something going on underneath that belies the line. And his eyes and the tone of his voice say something different than the words he's speaking. It's not an easy thing to work with subtext, but when you do it well, you really get people's attention."<br>
* Garak was also given a tailor shop as an homage to <em>The Man from U.N.C.L.E.</em> (for which Peter Allan Fields was a writer): the secret entrance to U.N.C.L.E. headquarters was in Del Floria’s tailor shop.<br>
* Nana Visitor requested Kira's hairstyle be changed from the pilot episode: "I just didn't feel that Major Kira would style her hair every day. She wouldn't care! I wanted a hairstyle that looked like she just woke up in the morning looking like that."<br>
* The sentiments Tahna Los expresses toward the Federation, as well as his phrase "Bajor for Bajorans," come back in the beginning of season two with a three-part story arc ("The Homecoming", "The Circle", "The Siege") involving an extremist faction known as Alliance for Global Unity. <br>
* The Cardassian method of torture, via a pain-inducing implant under the skin that leaves an unpleasant scar as seen in TNG: "Chain of Command, Part II" is referred to in this episode, as Julian Bashir notes scarring on Tahna Los during a medical exam.<br>
* This is the first time that the Klingons appear on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.<br>
* This episode marks the only appearances of Lursa (Barbara March) and B'Etor (Gwynyth Walsh), the Duras sisters, on the series. However, their mirror universe counterparts, Lursa and B'Etor, would later be mentioned in "Crossover" and their nephew Toral appears in "The Sword of Kahless".<br>
* Kira and Odo's friendship is established in this episode. <br>
* Among the clothes seen in Garak's shop is the costume worn by Steven Miller in TNG: "Haven", the Risa outfit worn by Sovak in "Captain's Holiday" and one of Kamala's dresses from "The Perfect Mate".<br>
* Sisko mentions the Klingon Civil War, which took place in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes "Redemption" and "Redemption II". This episode reveals the House of Duras are attempting to rebuild their forces by making profit.<br>
* This was Star Trek recurring actor Vaughn Armstrong's first appearance on DS9. He had previously played <a href="http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Korris">Commander Korris</a> on TNG's "Heart of Glory." His next appearance on the show would be the episode "When It Rains..." where he would play a Cardassian, Seskal.<br>
* With the appearance of the <em>Ganges</em>, all three runabouts assigned to the station have been named. They’re all named after Earth rivers, a trend that will continue throughout the series.<br>
* The episode title comes from "what's past is prologue" from The Tempest, act 2, scene 1, by William Shakespeare.<br>
* This episode suggests that the value of gold pressed latinum is measured in weight, but future episodes firmly establish that it is measured in units of slips, strips, and bars.<br>
* Babylon 5's Patricia "Lyta Alexander" Tallman was Nana Visitor's stunt double for this episode.<br>
<br>
<center>--<br>
<strong>Sisko</strong>: [to Kira] <em>Go over my head again, and I'll have yours on a platter.</em><br>
--</center>tag:fanfare.metafilter.com,2015:site.3186Wed, 29 Apr 2015 07:41:38 -0800zarqStar Trek: Deep Space Nine Rewatch?http://fanfare.metafilter.com/3074/Star%2DTrek%2DDeep%2DSpace%2DNine%2DRewatch
Is there any interest in a ST:DS9 rewatch? If so, what post frequency might work for everyone? Over seven seasons, the show clocked in 173 episodes.tag:fanfare.metafilter.com,2015:site.3074Thu, 16 Apr 2015 13:04:10 -0800zarq